Moving On
by Scatterheart
Summary: Alex/Donovan. This is post episode number 8, The Siege. (Prison riot one.) Anyway, Alex is angry that Carlos Cortez left her, so she's driving around in her car... and meets... *grin*


Disclaimer: Nothing's mine! The song at the end isn't mine. Don't sue!   
Rating: PG for language.   
Summary: Alex's thoughts on her lover Carlos Cortez leaving… and on Frank Donovan. OooOoo… If you don't like Alex and Frank getting "together" this story is not for you! And there's angst too. So have fun! 

Moving On   
By: Scatterheart 

_When you love somebody, you don't get mad, just disappointed. ~Carlos Cortez_

It was amazing what a little separation could do to her. She drove down the deserted highway in a daze, feeling as heavy as the rain clouds stuffing the pre-dawn sky and as furious as the shards of moonlight reflected in the gravelly road. The wind shrieked through the crack in the driver's side window, bringing back memories of pure hell as it tossed her blond hair wildly about her face. She glimpsed at her reflection caught in the rearview mirror and could hardly recognize the Alex Cross staring back. The rage in her eyes was frightening. 

But then again, there was nothing else she could feel for that hopeless excuse of a lover, Carlos Cortez. "When you love somebody, you don't get mad, just disappointed," he had told her right before leaving for his damn tropical island on the other side of the International Date Line. 

She couldn't help it. As she had watched the plane rise up into the early afternoon air, the only sensation that coursed through her was fury. There had been sadness too, but all of her life had been spent on being pathetically sad, weeping for the loss of friends, lovers, and colleagues. Mourning for people that never even realized how much she poured her heart out to them. Never even cared. 

Like Cortez. Now somewhere on a sun washed beach, sucking on drinks with paper umbrellas on the side. Relaxing. Taking his time off from the world. Watching bikini chicks stroll by in the sunset while any memory of Alex's existence washed back out to sea with the bubbling waves. 

And this was how she was loved, with useless promises and distances. He had said so many times he loved her, but he was gone now, and the empty words meant nothing anymore. Absolutely nothing. 

Watching the glowing red needle of the speedometer turn from eighty to eighty-two to eighty-four, she tested the speed limit and reveled in the morbid rush of swiftness. Ahead of her, a lonely car with flashing headlights bounced over the road and sliced past with its horn blaring distortedly. She slammed her fist angrily against the steering wheel- "Screw you, bitch!" -and floored the accelerator. 

She was through with hoping, waiting and spending her life to chase after him any longer. Their relationship was _done._ With the thought in her mind, she gritted her teeth and drove. 

The road ahead was bumpy and narrow. She knew from five years of traveling down the same street as to where she was. The innocuous looking warehouse that was the UC headquarters could barely be seen at the end of the block, like a faceless rectangle in the fading night. Almost reflexively she forced the car into a skidding turn and jolted onto the drive that lead to the abandoned parking lot. 

Work? She might as well. There was nothing else in her life worth doing. 

She plunged her car toward the last parking space to the left and prepared to slam on the brakes as hard as she could. 

With a crash, something else did it for her. 

She heard the earsplitting explosion of steel hitting steel a split second before she was flying into the painful grip of her seatbelt. It slapped her backwards into the headrest. Jerked her forward again. Her car squealed to a stop and she froze in the aftermath, stunned. It was only now that she could see the faint silhouette of the remains of a black sportscar smashed against the front of hers. 

She attempted to move. Couldn't. Her heart was beating triple speed in her ribcage. She scrutinized the totaled sportscar in hazy bewilderment, watching the gray smoke forming a light cloud that snaked over her windshield. The smell of burnt rubber, gasoline and steel seeped through the window. She coughed at the sickening odor, and it was only then that she saw a man burst outside of the headquarters, running towards the wreckage, holding the wavering beam of a flashlight in his hands. He came within ten feet of her, and the yellow flashlight illuminated his face. 

She could have laughed in her misery. Damn Fate, damn that asshole Carlos, damn the stupid Feds and her damn job. It was Frank Donovan. Of all the people in the world… 

He shone his flashlight inside of her car and his mouth dropped in shock before running up to the car door and flinging it open. She expected him to launch into one of his famous diatribes, bracing herself and waiting for that first "Damn it, Alex! What the _hell_ did you do to my car?" 

It didn't come. Only a soft, urgent "Are you all right?" His eyes were intense beneath his heavy eyebrows, almost black. He rested his arm on the door and lowered the harsh glare of the flashlight. 

Alex found that she couldn't speak. Her throat was parched and devoid of words. All she could sense was the incredible calmness of the aftereffects of the crash. For a second, blankness. 

Then, surprisingly, it was the familiar scent of his cologne that registered inside of her mind first, wafting over the awful smell of burnt materials and bringing her back to her senses. She wondered why she had never paid attention to it before, the warm, almost spice-like cologne that he wore without fail every day. 

And then she realized she was staring at him, at his undeniably handsome face, and averted her gaze. Her nerves felt as fried as the smoking wreckage in front of her. She pulled for some words out of thin air. "I'm sorry, Frank. About the-" 

He didn't let her finish. "Are _you_ all right?" 

"Me? I think so." 

"You hurt?" he asked. Reaching over, he pressed his fingers on her temple, gently testing. 

She gasped at the first human contact since that bitter kiss with Carlos over half a day ago. She shrugged him off awkwardly. "I'm fine, Donovan." 

"You don't sound fine. How's your neck?" 

"Not broken." 

"Can you breathe all right?" 

"Yes," she said sharply. "What is this, twenty questions?" 

A small, tired, humorless smile brushed his full lips. "I'm just concerned for one of my co-workers." 

"Concerned?" she said brusquely. "I don't need _your_ concern." How ironic it was that _Frank Donovan_ was concerned about her, when Carlos was supposed to be the one concerned. She wrenched off her safety belt and took a step out of the car. Her ankle shook unsteadily as it contacted with the ground, and she felt herself stumbling forward, falling. 

"Careful!" Two strong hands caught her at the elbows. 

She grabbed Donovan's arms, holding onto the soft material of his knitted sweater. Her face burned with a flaming heat. "Sorry. I'm okay." She stepped back from him and rested against the cold steel and glass of the car. Somehow, she knew she was blushing furiously. Didn't know why. "Sorry about your car," she said. "I didn't know you drive a sports car." 

"More or less." 

She looked at the mass of twisted steel and smoke that was the whole second half of his car coupled with her own. "I'm really such an idiot. I should have seen it before I pulled up, but the stupid city isn't giving us any streetlights, so I can't see two feet in front of my eyes. I-" 

"Forget it. Let's not talk about it when we're in this condition." Donovan sighed and rubbed his brow with two fingers. "Condition?" Alex Cross repeated. "What the hell do you mean? What condition?" Donovan's eyes were dark and shadowed in the yellow glow of the flashlight, expressionless yet intense. His face was darkened by an unshaved beard. And it was only now that Alex could see the barely visible lines across his forehead and the weary, sleep starved countenance of his posture. "Damn it, it's nearly five. Why are you still here, Donovan?" she asked. 

"It's not important," he returned. "Why are you here?" 

She shook her head. He didn't need to know why she was here, and she didn't care anymore as to why she was here. The plane in the sky, the far off beaches, the maddening drives down stretches of highway; she yearned to forget them all. "Frank, you stayed up all night, didn't you?" she said. "What were you doing? Work?" 

His gaze hardened. "Yes, Alex. Report for the DA about the prison riot." 

She was angry. "You were writing the report to the DA? _Without_ us? Are you trying to work yourself to death? At least you could have asked me or Jake to help you-" 

"Did you even see Jake after the riot, Alex? Or Cody or Monica or yourself?" he said harshly. "All of you looked about ready to die. That was close to two days of hell, and you know it." 

But it wasn't as hellish as some other things, she thought distractedly. "You're not Superman, Donovan," she snapped. "You look just about ready to die as we do." But he was still handsome in that way she couldn't describe, and so unnervingly beautiful in the night air she wondered if she had truly lost her mind, and was going crazy. And now the anger was not directed toward Carlos Cortez or Frank Donovan, but toward herself. She buried her head in her hands. 

"Look, I don't want any of my agents overworking themselves," came his steady baritone. "I don't want my agents having nervous breakdowns or anything like that." 

"You think you're tough to handle it yourself?" 

"Damn it, Alex! Do you think I enjoy watching you and Jake drink and smoke yourselves to death after each assignment? You're practically suffering in your jobs." 

"Suffering?" she shouted, looking up. Restrained herself from falling into the inviting warmth of his embrace. "What do you know about suffering?" 

He was silent for a full three seconds. And then he turned on his heel and walked away from her, letting the cold night wind filling the growing distance between them. He walked to the door of the headquarters and vanished inside. 

Alex stared down at her hands and at the creases and faint scars that ran over them. A single bead of light reflected off of her palm. She squinted to see that it was a drop of liquid… a tear. She quickly lifted her head, focused on the moon, anything to keep herself from crying any more. She will _not_ cry. Not for Carlos or herself or Donovan. 

Definitely not her cold hearted boss who, fifteen minutes ago, was just another unidentifiable man passing her by like a fleeting shadow. Not the worry he had shown for her, not his goddamned self-sacrifices. And it was _not_ immeasurable pain that she had seen in his eyes before he had walked away from her. 

The tears were defying her, welling out of her eyes and spilling onto her cheeks and running like innumerable little rivers down her face. She gave up. Cried. Time passed. 

And she felt the smallest of taps over her shoulder, and when she wheeled around, almost drowned into him. 

"I got you a drink," he said softly. "Thought you might need it." He held out a mug of something steaming and sweet with both hands. "Coffee. Irish crème, two cubes of sugar." 

Her favorite. He must have known, or made an incredibly accurate guess. "How did you know?" she whispered dully, making no move to take it. 

He gave an apologetic smile. "Monica. She told me when I first came. I wanted to know who I was working with." 

"My God…" The tears flowed again like waterfalls, and she wiped at them with the back of her hand. There was no way she could hide from him now, in the dusky light of the earliest dawn. And if he asked her what was wrong, she would just tell him everything because she had no more control anymore, over herself or anything else. 

"Are you going to have some?" he asked. 

She took the mug from his warm hands and held it to her lips. She downed the hot liquid, then placed the mug on top of the car. "Thank you." 

He nodded. "You need some rest. Go inside and sleep for a while." 

"It's almost five in the morning, Frank," she said. "I'd rather just work." 

He put a hand on her shoulder. The warmth radiated under the fabric of her clothing and into her bare skin. There was the saddest of smiles on his face. "Take care of yourself, Alex, please." -and gave her a gentle squeeze. 

She couldn't hold back anymore the emotion she had been chaining up for what felt like an eternity, and like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly severed with scissors, she collapsed into his waiting arms. He held her to his chest without a word, and she cried into his soft, soft sweater, breathing in his wonderful scent. His hands slowly stroked her hair. "I'm so sorry about Cortez," he whispered. "I'm so sorry." 

She wondered briefly how he ever knew about Cortez. From Jake? Cody? Monica? Who had snitched her embarrassing little secret to him? But it didn't matter. And she wasn't sorry about Carlos Cortez at all, not after all of those times when she had been foolish enough to be. She murmured, "Don't be sorry. It's just grief. It'll pass." 

Donovan did not respond. Perhaps he didn't hear. 

But she heard herself for the first time in ages. 

  
When everything is going wrong   
And you can't see the point of going on   
Nothing in life is set in stone   
There's nothing that can't be turned around   
  
Nobody wants to be alone   
Everybody wants to love someone   
Out of the tree go pick a plum   
Why can't we all just get along? ~Garbage "Androgyny" 

Finis! Boy, I wish I were one of those people choosing songs to play on the episodes!! Anyway, write a review. 2shy@teenagewildlife.com. 


End file.
